Reviews NYCOff-Broadway Published 30 June 2024

Review: Isabel at Abrons Arts Center

Abrons Arts Center ⋄ 14th June through 6th July 2024

reid tang’s new play exists in a jiggly universe full of unpredictable concepts and images but meaning is harder to ascribe to it. Nicole Serratore reviews.

Nicole Serratore

Ni-Ni and Sagen Chen in Isabel (Photo: Marcus Middleton)

reid tang’s play Isabel is awash with unpredictable images and concepts. Time is not linear. The play is constantly redefining that which we see. For instance, a human sibling once known as Harriet using “he” pronouns might suddenly become a backpack named Loaves Chapman who is a “she.” One must give into the play’s jiggly universe and the evocative sound and lighting support this changing world. With a non-binary/trans cast, this haunted woodland experience directed by Kedian Keohan is not filled with scares but more a fumbling towards deeper understanding.

Matt (they/he) (Sagen Chen) has moved to the forest and is restoring a crumbling house that heaves and whines when unhappy. Matt tells us the house is a “she” named Emerson. Their cell phone is a “she” too but questioning. Matt has “an unimpeachable inner sense of gender” and “an unimpeachable instinct for names.”

Their sibling Harriet (he/him) (Ni-Ni) arrives to Matt’s house with his lover Isabel (Haruna Lee) after walking for weeks, maybe. Or it could be days. He does not understand why Matt has chosen to live in in the middle of nowhere or why Matt has stopped having sex. Harriet and Isabel generally cannot keep their hands off each other. Meanwhile, Matt’s mother has sent along a dildo saying “it’s the only thing from home you’d miss.”

Perceptions and reality are in constant flux in the play. Gender, sex, identity, and acceptance are on the menu. But the universe does not unfold for us with ease and the discoveries may not be as revelatory as we hope either.

For instance, we are told staircases appear in the forest and you are advised to avoid them. Like sirens they will call to you. Isabel has taunted one by leaving a dildo at the top of one. But the consequences of this silicone offering are unclear.

Something bad happens to Harriet and Isabel but we don’t find out exactly what. Is Harriet turning into Loaves, the backpack, a punishment for interfering with the staircases or is this simply the way in which Harriet expresses their new gender identity to Isabel?  Isabel does not understand what has happened but Matt reads the situation immediately and learns to speak backpack for the sake of Loaves.

With scenic design by dots, a large old staircase from Matt’s new house slowly creeps towards the audience during the play. Tei Blow’s physically shaking sound-design rumbles under our seats as the house creaks and complains and as things happen in the forest. Mysterious sounds of grating and a mechanical hum create a sense of suspense. But while the production toys with an unsettling nature that exists in the light and the dark, the play does not always maintain the foreboding the design creates.

Unsure of everything around us the humor and relational dynamics can be strained. But there were two scenes I found powerful and effecting. First, Harriet and Isabel are lost in the woods and have some sort of erotic moment. Harriet has a large bruise on his side and Isabel presses it giving him pleasure. But there is a sense that this bruise is a passage inside him and to take all of Isabel inside him could lead somewhere. They have been wandering in general in their lives and this scene is momentous for them.  There is something in this dialogue that is getting at something deeper and I liked where it was leading.

Second, there is a meaningful flashback. Or, well, as time is also in flux, maybe it is now? In any event, we see Matt and Harriet’s teenage relationship when they were living at home on the cusp of change.

Matt has been secretly plotting an escape from their mother’s house. It appears that their mother is not happy with Matt’s name and gender. We understand quickly that this is a hostile household for Matt.

Harriet has helped Matt out by hiding their packer penis so their mother does not find it when searching Matt’s room. It is a small gesture but as Matt cradles the packer you sense how much this means to them. Harriet loves and sees Matt completely.

We never see their mother. She is the sound of a mountain lion off-stage—all roars and hisses. The kids cower and hide when she shouts at them (if the parental antagonism wasn’t clear).

The two teens imagine buying bus tickets and Dunkin’ Donuts and making their way to the forest. Matt suggests that once they take this step towards liberation, “We won’t be dead anymore.” “Life will finally begin.”

Whether the Matt of the crumbling house is the culmination of teenage Matt’s dream or is simply a dream teen Matt is having it is hard to say.

tang’s introduction to the script says, “gender is scary!! embrace the fear.” With a gun to my head, I’d guess we are supposed to understand the fraught space the play exists in is a metaphor for genderfluidity in a world demanding gender conformity. Existing in a society insisting on fixed and rigid rules when floating staircases and moaning houses are your reality can be discombobulating. And these characters are themselves continuing to seek their own inner-understanding. They too are changing. That might be itself quite scary.

But I am hesitant to ascribe this meaning to the play too. It is a little too simplistic and reductive maybe. The play is communicating something–it is on the tip of my tongue–but I’m not sure I speak backpack yet.


Nicole Serratore

Nicole Serratore writes about theater for Variety, The Stage, American Theatre magazine, and TDF Stages. She previously wrote for the Village Voice and Flavorpill. She was a co-host and co-producer of the Maxamoo theater podcast. She is a member of the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle.

Review: Isabel at Abrons Arts Center Show Info


Produced by NAATCO

Directed by Kedian Keohan

Written by reid tang

Scenic Design dots

Costume Design Hahnji Jang

Lighting Design Barbara Samuels

Sound Design Tei Blow

Cast includes Sagan Chen, Haruna Lee and Ni-Ni


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